After a while, Angelo’s arms got tired and he flopped down onto the grass to rest, staring up at the bright blue summer sky. Crossing the distance between them in a few strides, Lewis lay down next to the boy. “You really are a pro at catching, Angelo,” he said.
“I told you!” the boy crowed.
Lewis nodded. “And you know what I think, Angelo?”
“What?”
“I think that playing so well deserves an ice cream. What do you think?”
Angelo grinned then frowned. “We should ask my mom,” he said. “She doesn’t like me to eat too much dessert.”
Lewis propped himself up on his elbows. “Rosie?” he called. “Is it okay if Angelo and I get an ice cream to reward all his hard work?” he asked.
Rosie smiled at the two boys in the grass. “Only if I get one too,” she answered.
“Yeaaaah!” Angelo shouted, rolling over to give Lewis a hug.
Laughing, Lewis picked up the boy, mitts, and the ball and carried them all over to Rosie. “My treat,” he told her. “I know you have a rule about only spending time with me if I’m paying for it.”
Rosie shook her head, smiling. “Glad to see you remembered,” she replied. “Why don’t we go down to Antonio’s?” she asked Angelo, drawing her car keys from her back pocket.
The boy nodded enthusiastically. “They have the best ice cream in the whole world,” he told Lewis.
“Oh really?” Lewis asked. “Well, I guess we’d better go there then.”
“You mean you’ve never gone?”
Lewis shook his head.
“Yeah,” Angelo agreed, “then we’d better go and really fast too.”
Lewis laughed, ruffling Angelo’s blond curls with one enormous hand. “I can’t wait,” he said.
At Antonio’s Lewis bought the three of them enormous waffle cones and they sat outside under one of the ice cream parlour’s large red and white striped umbrellas, licking their cones and watching the people go by. Angelo sat in between Lewis and Rosie, slurping his dripping treat and humming happily to himself. He couldn’t imagine a better afternoon.
The two adults, on the other hand, sat in silence. Lewis was dying to learn more about Rosie’s life, but he knew it wasn’t his place to ask, and Rosie, who felt she owed Lewis some kind of explanation, was trying to work up the courage to explain it all.
Finally, just as Lewis finally opened his mouth to speak, Rosie said, “His dad couldn’t deal with it.”
Lewis raised his eyebrows. “You mean Angelo’s dad?”
Rosie nodded. “I was so in love with him. We were young, I was only 22 and Mike was 23. And you know what it’s like when you’re that age. You think you’re going to be with that person forever. And I did think that. I couldn’t imagine ever loving anyone but Mike.” She sighed, looking out at the traffic. “But, then, when Angelo was born and the doctor told us about his condition, Mike just couldn’t deal with it. He said that it was too much for him and he needed some time to come to terms with everything. So he left.”
“He never came back?” Lewis asked softly.
Rosie shook her head. “Nope. I thought he’d get over it in a few weeks…a month, maybe, but we never heard from him again. Not even a phone call or an email. He’s never even spoken to Angelo. He has no idea what a wonderful, caring—” Rosie sniffed, trying to wipe her eyes without Lewis seeing, “—beautiful boy he has. And, since then, it’s just been me and Angelo. I’ve never needed anyone else. Angelo is the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I love him so much that, even if I liked a guy and everything seemed great, I’ve never wanted to bring anyone else into Angelo’s life if I couldn’t be sure that they’d stay for good. It wouldn’t be fair to Angelo to get his hopes up about having a new dad, only for us to break up or for the guy to decide he wasn’t up to it. So I always broke it off sooner rather than later. It was easier that way.”
Lewis was silent, watching Rosie try to keep from crying.
“So, please, Lewis,” she said, looking right at him. “Please go. Please leave us alone. Because I kind of like you, but you’re a selfish asshole and you’ll break his heart. And I can’t let you do that.”
Each one of Rosie’s words hit Lewis like a sucker punch to the gut. He knew she was right and that he didn’t deserve to be part of a family like this. He knew he owed her an apology for his behavior – he even felt like he should apologize to her for Mike’s behavior too, even though obviously he’d had nothing to do with it. But he also knew that there was no point. No apology and no promises would ever be good enough. Nor would they make up for what she’d already gone through. Slowly, silently, Lewis nodded.
“Of course,” he said softly. “I get it. You won’t ever see me again, I promise.”
Swallowing back tears, Rosie nodded. “Thank you,” she said, just as softly. “That may be the nicest thing you’ve ever done.”
Lewis laughed dryly. She was probably right. He didn’t mention his aborted career – the whole reason he’d come down to find her in the first place. He couldn’t ask her to be his therapist again and he didn’t want her thinking that it was her fault. Because it wasn’t. As much as Lewis had tried to run from the truth, this whole disaster was all down to him.
Slowly, he got to his feet. Now that it came down to it, he didn’t want to leave them. He’d had a really fun time playing with Angelo and the idea of never seeing Rosie again hit him harder than he thought it would. Somewhere along the line, he’d gone from trying to trick her into bed with him to actually really caring about her. It was a new experience for Lewis.
“I guess I’ll see you around—I mean, I guess not…I…have a nice life, Rosie. Thanks for everything,” he told her, stumbling over his words.
She nodded. “You too, Lewis.”
Lewis turned to Angelo, who was still completely absorbed in eating his ice cream and oblivious to the world around him. “Hey, buddy,” said Lewis, his words catching in his throat. “I gotta go.”
The little boy started, his dark eyes focusing on Lewis. “You’re leaving?” he asked, looking sad. “But I thought you were coming home with us for dinner!”
“I…” Lewis glanced at Rosie desperately.
“Lewis is a very busy man, Angelo,” Rosie told her son. “He’s got a lot of things to do.”
Angelo’s lower lip trembled. “It’s because you don’t like me, isn’t it?” he asked quietly, his whole body drooping.
“What?” Lewis asked, taken completely by surprise. “Why would you think that, Angelo?”
The little boy sighed. “Because I’m different. It’s okay. Some of the kids at school don’t like me either. They say I’m dumb. If you don’t like me, you don’t have to pretend.”
Lewis was furious. “Other kids at school say you’re dumb? Well, they’re the dumb ones, Angelo. Because it’s pretty obvious to me that you’re one smart kid,” he said, sitting down again and tipping Angelo’s chin up with one finger. “Trust me, Angelo. I like you a lot. You’re one of the best catchers I’ve ever met! And I wish I didn’t have to go, but that’s how it is.”
“Really?” the boy brightened. “You mean it?”
“Of course,” said Lewis.
“Then why don’t you want to come for dinner?” Angelo asked, frowning. “Are you sure you can’t come? 100% positive?”
Lewis glanced at Rosie. The woman sighed as she nodded, waving a hand in resignation. Grinning, Lewis turned back to the boy. “Well, maybe I can reschedule my appointment.”
Angelo beamed at the baseball player, once more throwing his tiny arms around the man’s neck. “Yes! Yes! Reeskjewel!” he said, doing his best to pronounce the new word.
Laughing, Lewis hugged Angelo to him.
“Mom promised me pasta tonight!” Angelo told him, leaning back so he could look into Lewis’ face. “You’ll like it because mommy makes the best pasta sauce. She says it’s because of the secret ingredient.”
/>
“Oh, really?” Lewis asked. “And what’s the secret ingredient?”
“I can’t tell you that!” Angelo said, appalled. “It’s secret!” Then he glanced around, checking who was listening to their conversation. “But maybe later, when we’re at home and no one can hear us, I’ll whisper it to you really quietly, okay?”
“Deal,” said Lewis.
“Lewis is coming for dinner, mommy!!” Angelo turned back to his mother grinning. “Can you believe it? He’s the best baseball player of all time!”
Rosie nodded, her smile much smaller than her son’s. “That’s right, sweetheart,” she said. “He is.”
“Oh, but you have to behave at the table,” Angelo told Lewis solemnly. “You can’t slurp your noodles up in one big gulp. If you do that then you won’t get dessert.”
“Right,” said Lewis, nodding just as seriously. “Thanks for warning me. I wouldn’t want to miss dessert. I bet your mom makes great desserts.”
“Nah,” said Angelo, “she buys the dessert. She hates the oven because she always burns herself.”
Lewis raised his eyebrows at Rosie over Angelo’s head and she rolled her eyes. “Don’t make me regret this,” she warned Lewis, but there was the tiniest hint of a smile in the corner of her mouth.
Chapter 6
As Rosie drove them home, Lewis and Angelo sat in the back discussing baseball. Angelo told Lewis about all his favorite games, recounting in detail who played and what happened, impressing Lewis with his memory.
When they got home, Rosie set them to work making the salad and Lewis found himself at a loss. He’d never had to make a salad before. The furthest his cooking skills went was boiling the water for pasta or turning on the microwave. He was about to chop up the carrot when Angelo, who was standing on a stool next to him washing the vegetables in the sink, intervened, shaking his head at the older man. “You don’t chop carrots for salad, Lewis,” he told him, passing him the grater. “You grate them.”
“Really?” Lewis asked. “Okay then.”
With only a few minor mishaps, the salad was slowly finished. By the time Angelo ran off to put it on the table, Lewis was feeling pretty proud of himself. Although he had to admit that it hurt his pride a little to see that, while he and Angelo had been making a simple salad, Rosie had quietly whipped up a huge batch of chicken fettuccini alfredo. “That smells amazing,” he told her as she carried it out to the table.
Rosie silently nodded her thanks. “Can you set the table, please, Angelo?” she asked.
“Yep!” the little boy replied, scampering back into the kitchen. “Come on, Lewis! I’ll show you where the plates are.”
As they set the plates and cutlery out on the table, Angelo looked up at Lewis and asked, “Lewis, are you hungry?”
“Yeah, I’m starving!” said Lewis with a grin. “How about you, Angelo?”
The little boy nodded, looking concerned. “Does that mean you’re going to hit someone?”
Lewis froze in the middle of placing a knife and fork. “What?” he asked. “Angelo, why would you think I’d hit someone because I’m hungry?”
Angelo bit his lip. “Because sometimes when people get really hungry they get really angry. Like me. And then they do some stuff that they don’t mean to do. Like the time you punched that pretty lady in a restaurant. Mom said it was because you were hungry.”
“Angelo likes to watch the news,” Rosie told Lewis. She watched his reaction carefully, curious to see how he’d respond to the situation.
Lewis nodded. “Your mom was being nice,” he said. “I wasn’t really hungry – or, at least, I wasn’t hungry for food. I was being a jerk and a bully, like those kids at school that say you’re dumb.”
Angelo’s mouth turned down. “But why would you do that? I thought you said that those kids are the dumb ones. Does that mean you’re dumb too?”
The baseball star smiled sadly. “Sometimes, Angelo, I can be really dumb. And I can be very selfish. Do you know what being selfish means?”
Angelo nodded. “Yeah. It’s like when you don’t want to share with your friends.”
“That’s right. Except I don’t have very many friends because I can be really selfish.”
“I can be your friend,” said Angelo. “I’ll tell you if you’re being selfish.”
“Thanks, buddy,” said Lewis. “But your mom is – was – helping me to not be so dumb.”
“Yeah, my mom’s really good at helping people,” said Angelo. “Are you better now?”
“Way better,” said Lewis. “You’re right. Your mom’s pretty good at helping people.”
Angelo came around the table and wrapped his arms around Rosie’s waist in a tight hug. “I love her the most,” he told Lewis. “She’s the smartest person I know.”
Lewis smiled, his heart constricting as he watched Rosie smile down at her son and tenderly ruffle his curls. “She sure is smart,” he agreed.
Rosie shook her head. “Let’s eat, guys! I’m hungry and the food’s going cold.”
“Yeah!” Angelo shouted, running back to his chair.
***
It was possibly one of the happiest dinners Lewis had ever had. The three of them laughed and joked and Angelo showed off the origami he was learning in school, making a very lopsided crane out of his napkin. It had been a long time since Lewis had eaten dinner with anyone other than Ben, his teammates, or a woman he was trying to sleep with - and those were very different kinds of dinners. He liked this one better.
After dessert – fruit salad, no ovens needed – Lewis helped Rosie put Angelo to bed. At the boy’s request, he sat down beside him and read a Bernstein Bears book until the little boy’s eyes drifted shut. They were only halfway through the slim picture book, but Angelo was worn out from the excitement of the day. As quietly as he could, Lewis got up and turned off the light.
As he shut the door behind him, he noticed two glasses of wine on the kitchen counter. “Do you…I can go, Rosie,” he said softly, gesturing to the wine.
The woman nodded. “You can. Or you can have a glass of wine with me,” she replied.
“Do you really want me to?”
“Trust me, Lewis. If I didn’t, you would know.”
Lewis smiled. “Very true.”
Rosie passed him a glass and he clinked it against hers in a quiet toast. “Thank you,” he said. “This has been…thank you.”
Rosie nodded, sipping her wine. “Couch?” she asked.
Nodding, Lewis followed her to the living room. For a moment they just looked at each other, each unsure where to start. “I’m sorry,” Lewis blurted out at last.
Rosie raised her eyebrows. “For which part, exactly?”
“For all of it. For being such a dick the first time we met. For being such a dick in general. For hitting on you and making you feel uncomfortable. For just wanting to get into your pants and not thinking about your feelings. For everything. For fucking everything up.”
“And what have you fucked up?” Rosie asked, sipping her wine.
Lewis laughed wryly. “What haven’t I fucked up? My career, my friendships, the possibility of being with you.”
Rosie’s eyebrows shot up. “With me?” she asked.
Lewis nodded. “I…you’ve really…I’ve never thought about anyone else before, about how they feel or how what I’m doing makes them feel. You’re the first person to ever make me realize that other people have feelings too and that my actions hurt them. God, that’s awful to admit out loud. How has it taken me this long?”
Rosie chuckled. “Maybe you’re not an entirely lost case, after all, Lewis.”
He shook his head. “Today has been amazing, Rosie. Playing with Angelo…I’ve never felt so comfortable with anyone in my life. He’s great and you’re great and you’re lucky to have each other. And you both deserve the best. And I…I’m definitely not the best.” Taking one more sip, Lewis set down his wine glass. He
took a long look at Rosie and then stood up. “So, I’m going to go now. And you don’t need to worry: I’ll stay out of your life. You’ll never have to deal with me and my shit again. But I really hope that you find someone who deserves you – you and Angelo. Thanks again for everything, Rosie.” And, with that, he headed for the door.
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